1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a file processing method, and computer-readable memory medium and program, in which an image file or an application file is stored into a storing apparatus such as an external storing apparatus or the like and managed and an image of such a file is displayed as a thumbnail image as a reduction image.
2. Related Background Art
Hitherto, there is a document management application for managing a text file or an image file in an information processing apparatus. A program according to the invention is one of such applications. The document management application has: a function such that an image file (BMP/JPEG/TIFF, etc.) or a file formed by another application is fetched by an importing operation, a scanning operation from a scanner, or an operation such as direct repository, printing, or the like from another application, stored into a storing apparatus such as an external storing apparatus or the like, and managed in accordance with a folder structure; a function for visually displaying an image of such a file as a thumbnail image as a reduction image; a function for displaying a list of statuses of respective documents; a function for extracting a character string for whole-document search from the stored and managed file and executing the whole-document search; a function for extracting the stored file to a location out of the application; and a function for outputting the stored file to a mail system or printing by a printer. That is, the document management application is an application which can reposit, search, and extract office documents formed in a general office.
According to the document management application, a plurality of data files (text file, image file, etc.) stored in the information processing apparatus are displayed as thumbnail images, thereby enabling the user to visually recognize them.
In recent years, in accordance with the spread of digital hybrid copying apparatuses each having a finisher which can realize a booklet function, a use method of not only instructing contents of booklet from an operation panel of the copying apparatus and using the instructed contents as a result of the copying apparatus but also directly printing in a format corresponding to the finisher in the case of printing from the application is increasing. In such a case, a printer driver has a function which can be used by the finisher.
In the above case, since print attributes need to be designated every printing, when print data is printed again in the same setting format after completion of the printing, it is necessary to store its printing method, store it into a log, or the like.
The following techniques have been considered in order to reduce such a burden on the user. First, a data file such as text file, image file, or the like is stored in an intermediate format and such a file is enabled to be opened by an application which can handle such a format. Thus, data files separately formed by a plurality of applications can be opened by a common application.
Second, a print setting function is implemented to the common application, thereby enabling various settings upon printing (a printing method (duplex, simplex, or booklet printing), a print layout (Nup or poster printing), a color processing mode, additional information settings (watermark, background, date, and user name), and the like) to be performed to the data file. A data format in which those print settings have been described in an attribute information area of the data file is prepared. Thus, in the case of printing the text file or the image file which has been constructed in a common data format, without newly performing a print setting, print data can be formed by using the print settings which have already been set in the data format. A burden such that the user has to perform the print settings (hereinafter, also referred to as print attributes) every printing can be reduced.
However, although the data file can be displayed as a thumbnail image in the conventional technique of the document management application as mentioned above, according to the conventional thumbnail display, since the data file is processed as a display of only image attributes, even in the case of a data file having print attributes, the print attributes (Z-folding, staple, punch) are not applied as they are to the thumbnail but a representative page (the first page of a document) is merely thumbnail displayed in a manner similar to the conventional one. Therefore, to distinguish a document with print attributes in a print management system, there is only a method of examining a property or displaying the attributes as document data in a list display mode. There is, consequently, a problem such that its operation is complicated and a print format cannot be intuitively grasped as an image from the thumbnail of the file.